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Alleged WikiLeaks Source Bradley Manning Takes the Stand

Bradley Manning, the army private accused of leaking diplomatic documents and secret files to WikiLeaks, finally made his voice heard Thursday, as he took the stand at a pretrial hearing in Fort Meade, Md. Manning's lawyers are asking the judge to drop all charges on the grounds that his treatment following arrest in Baghdad was too harsh ("unlawful pretrial punishment" in legal lingo).

Manning recounted his experience after his arrest on May 26, 2010, when he was detained at Camp Arifjan, in Kuwait. "I remember thinking, 'I'm going to die. I'm stuck inside this cage,'" Manning said to defense attorney David E. Coombs. "I just thought I was going to die in that cage. And that's how I saw it — an animal cage."

Referring to his unusual treatment at Quantico, where he was transferred at the end of July, 2010, Manning said, "It was weighted against me, they were looking to justify [a] decision already made," according to the Guardian journalist Ed Pilkington, who was at the hearing. Surprisingly, even some Quantico officials showed support for Manning. In a video played by Manning's defense, a Quantico official said "I wish we had a hundred PFC [private first class] Mannings," according to the editor of the Bradley Manning Support Network, Nathan Fuller, who was in the media room at Fort Meade.

According to reporters covering the hearing, Manning, the alleged source of the most sensational WikiLeaks disclosures, seemed animated and upbeat. To Kevin Gosztola, a reporter for FireDogLake who has covered the Manning trial tirelessly, he looked "energetic," and "intelligent."

Manning's lawyer drew the 6-by-8-foot cell in Quantico where he was detained on the courtroom floor to give the judge an idea of the conditions he had to withstand for nine months. During that time, Manning was designated a "maximum custody" detainee and put on "prevention of injury" status. That meant he had to spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in his cell, where he was under constant surveillance, had to sleep without any clothes at night to make sure he wasn't going to harm himself, and was forced to stand naked every morning outside his cell until he passed inspection before getting his clothes back. During his testimony today the defense showed a video of Manning naked inside his cell.

He was not allowed to exercise, although Manning revealed that he was able to dance since that wasn't officially considered exercising. In his only hour outside his cell he was only permitted to walk around another room, in shackles. Manning said he was also authorized to have "a 20 minutes sunshine call." To keep himself entertained, he played peekaboo in front of a mirror. "The most entertaining thing in there was the mirror," he said.

His conditions were so harsh that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture opened a 14-month investigation that determined his treatment was "inhuman," "cruel," "degrading," and "in violation of article 16 of the convention against torture." Even P.J. Crowley, at the time the U.S. State Department Spokesman, publicly criticized the U.S. government, saying his treatment was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." Crowley was forced to resign after that statement.

All this happened while the psychiatrists who had to evaluate his mental conditions repeatedly told Brig officials that his conditions were innappropriate and even dangerous. In the first two days of the pretrial hearing, Kevin Moore, a consulting psychiatrist, testified that his conditions were worse than some death row prisoners he's seen in his career. Navy Capt. William Hocter, the forensic psychiatrist on staff at Quantico, told the Brig officials that Manning's treatment was detrimental to his health and suggested he be removed from prevention of injury (POI) watch. His recommendation, though, was ignored. "I never really experienced anything like this," he said. "It was clear to me they had made up their mind on a certain course of action, and my recommendations had no impact."

It was so unusual that one guard referred to it as "Manning watch," the alleged whistleblower said.

When he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, where he wasn't under POI, Manning said he was relieved. "It was a huge upgrade," he said.

In the morning, the judge in the case, Col. Denise Lind, accepted the terms under which Manning had proposed to plead guilty earlier in November. The ruling doesn't mean the judge has accepted the plea, in fact, it hasn't even been formally introduced. But this means Manning can now plead guilty to seven of the 22 charges he faces, the ones that carry the least harsh punishment — those seven charges would carry a maximum prison term of only 16 years. Basically, Manning is willing to admit that he leaked documents and information to WikiLeaks, but not much else.

Also during the day, multiple journalists covering the trial reported that the U.S. government has decided to declassify some material found on Osama Bin Laden's computer, in order to enter it as evidence against Manning. As of press time, nobody knows what this material could be.

Presumably, the U.S. government will try to argue that Bradley Manning "aided the enemy," linking WikiLeaks' releases to Bin Laden in an effort to convince the judge to convict the army private for espionage. Aiding the enemy is the most serious charge Manning is facing, for which he could potentially face the death penalty, although prosecutors have already said they won't seek that conviction, instead asking for life in prison.

Meanwhile, Julian Assange, still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, said that Manning's harsh treatment was intended to force him to testify against Assange and WikiLeaks.

Manning's treatment was "an attempt to attack [WikiLeaks] by the United States military, to coerce this young man into providing evidence that could be used to more effectively attack us, and also serve as some kind of terrible disincentive for other potential whistleblowers from stepping forward," Assange said in a rare and long interview with DemocracyNow.

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